95 replies to this topic

[Khobai]

Quote

Wait till you see chainfire on 3 gauss.. You will soon™

Pretty much. Got builds like this to look forward to:

1) Daishi "Gausszilla": x3 Gauss (6T ammo), x1 ERPPC, x3 MG (1T ammo), 15 DHS
2) Daishi "Devastator": x2 Gauss (4T ammo), x2 ERPPC, x4 CERML, 21 DHS

[Violent Nick]

Felio, on 28 May 2014 - 07:37 AM, said:

30 pinpoint damage at short, medium or long range with the fastest projectile in the game is too much.

F**k off!

I don't mean that in a bad way but... really? REALLY?!

You then say:

Felio, on 28 May 2014 - 07:37 AM, said:

Yes, gauss rifles weigh a lot, so it doesn't leave much room for other things. Yes, it is low DPS if you get up and brawl with them. It doesn't matter.

Er..... NO. It does matter. Okay, no one likes being hit by a dual gauss.. (soon I'll be rocking a triple gauss so if we meet you're really not gonna like that.) Then again, no one likes being hit by anything. The shock of an AC, or a shower of LRMs..

Don't forget, to do that pinpoint damage where it really hurts takes some real skill so please just respect that. Also, if you nerf my Gauss on more time I'll just hit you with 5 or 6 Er Large Lasers instead, possibly 4 Er PPCs in my Boar's Head. Stocking up on upgraded 9X9 cool shots already..

Don't touch my Gauss!

(please.. and no hard feelings, just the passion..)

[Violent Nick]

Khobai, on 28 May 2014 - 04:01 PM, said:

Pretty much. Got builds like this to look forward to:

1) Daishi "Gausszilla": x3 Gauss (6T ammo), x1 ERPPC, x3 MG (1T ammo), 15 DHS
2) Daishi "Devastator": x2 Gauss (4T ammo), x2 ERPPC, x4 CERML, 21 DHS

1 = 20 triple gauss shots.
2 = 20 double gauss shots.

It's gonna take ages to push those babies out, and each miss will be costly.
The Daishi's top speed... around 50kph. You could get behind him and tickle him to death with a small laser..

Personally, til my Dire Wolf Pack arrives, I'm just gonna ride an Ilya Muromets with no armour and about 5 shots.

Edited by Nick86, 28 May 2014 - 04:19 PM.

[Firelizard]

All this talk of ghost heat, cooldowns, etc. this is all too complex. So lets go with simple:

Cut Gauss Rifle, PPC, and ERPPC recharge time, damage, and heat generation in half. Problem solved with two minutes of XML editing.

[LordKnightFandragon]

Thanatos676, on 28 May 2014 - 09:26 AM, said:

Another nerf on the Gauss rifle..No

It is where it should be with the charge up time, it does not need to be nerfed again...

Yeah, trade in the charge timer for a longer reload timer between shots.

PGI should totally do that. Increase reload timers on weapons, rather then nerfing thier damage and adding derpy mechanics.

[LordKnightFandragon]

Mcgral18, on 28 May 2014 - 09:47 AM, said:

It's more the fact it's a particle cannon which takes time to charge, same as the gauss rifle with the capacitors. I suppose the argument could be used against lasers, but I don't feel like debating that.

You can't charge those very quickly. They have the advantage of FLD (which ACs are not supposed to have) and have long range, which could easily be controlled by a longer cooldown, so IF the short range weapons can close, they will have the advantage. As it stands, a single PPC is arguably better than 2 SRM6s.

How is an AC not FLD, which im guessing means front loaded damage?

An AC is a single tank shell pretty much....GR is pretty much the same thing fired at a much higher velocity.

[Master Maniac]

I'll turn the argument that the anti-direct fire crowd loves to use so much in defense of their own preferred weapons against them:

Learn to use cover. That is all.

My Gauss Rifles don't shoot up and over cover, nor do they home in to hit a target with a click of a button.

Edited by Master Maniac, 28 May 2014 - 07:03 PM.

[Lightfoot]

Joseph Mallan, on 28 May 2014 - 08:08 AM, said:

TT has no recharge time per-say.

True, MechWarrior is a translation of tabletop rules into real-time, but this is done by balancing range, damage, and recharge so a Gauss Rifle is balanced by making it take about twice as long as an AC10 to recharge. The Gauss Rifle has a bit more range and does 50% more damage than an AC10 so this is a fair balance or very close.

The Gauss Rifle is NOT a Sniper Rifle, it is just a long range ballistic. Technically, it can't be faster than PPCs either. You don't need Mr. Wizard or Nikola Tesla to tell you why either. If PGI wants to add a new apocryphal sniper rifle to MWO, be my guest, but just don't call it a Gauss Rifle.

[Belorion]

Tl dr, stopped reading at 30.

[Mcgral18]

LordKnightFandragon, on 28 May 2014 - 06:49 PM, said:

How is an AC not FLD, which im guessing means front loaded damage?

An AC is a single tank shell pretty much....GR is pretty much the same thing fired at a much higher velocity.

An auto cannon is a weapon that rapid fires mid sized shells in order to destroy mech level armor.

Rifles exist, comparable to modern tank cannons. The Heavy variant does 6 damage against mech armor.

PGI implemented rifles, not ACs. They also implemented MRMs, not SRMs. Unless they wanted to have implemented Dead-Fire SRMs...which are supposed to do 3 damage since their guidance was removed.

[LordKnightFandragon]

Mcgral18, on 28 May 2014 - 08:29 PM, said:

An auto cannon is a weapon that rapid fires mid sized shells in order to destroy mech level armor.

Rifles exist, comparable to modern tank cannons. The Heavy variant does 6 damage against mech armor.

PGI implemented rifles, not ACs. They also implemented MRMs, not SRMs. Unless they wanted to have implemented Dead-Fire SRMs...which are supposed to do 3 damage since their guidance was removed.

mid sized shells, AC2 are 20mm, AC5 are 50? AC10s are like 85-90mm or so and AC20s are like 120mm

Just cuz they are rapid fired doesnt mean they suddenly deal half the damage of a single shot AC10....

[nimdabew]

Vyx, on 28 May 2014 - 08:50 AM, said:

This idea actually has some merit, IMO. Why not try something like this: Each weapon grouping (missile, energy, ballistic) has a recharge rate, let's say 2 "ticks" per second. If you fire a weapon, you have to "pay" its recycle time (in ticks) for it to recharge/reload. For example, fire a medium laser and it begins to recharge/reload at 2 ticks per second until its recycle time is all paid-up, whereupon it is again ready to fire. Fire more than one medium laser simultaneously and the 'mech begins to pay for each non-recycled weapon in turn, attempting to get the laser with the shortest remaining recycle time back online as soon as possible, then immediately moving to the next. The same solution could be applied to the other weapon groupings, simulating the feeding of missiles, reloading of rounds, etc. This would allow strong alpha strikes, but then slower, more metered-out fire as weapons reloaded. A skilled mechwarrior would rarely alpha strike unless they were sure all weapons would fall on target, as missing would place them at high disadvantage. As a point of note, modules that increased particular weapon recharge rates could be introduced: "enhanced energy capacitor module" (double rate of recharge for energy weapons), "high-efficiency missile feed module" (double rate of missile recharge), etc. Anyway, something to think about.

Way simpler method: An 300 rated engine has 100 energy from the 300 energy engine to power the mechs mobility, 50 for life support and other etc crap, and 150/sec for weapons. If you fire all weapons, it takes that 150 energy/sec to recharge based on load. If you fire the medium laser, it recharges in the standard 4 seconds because a medium laser would draw, say 40 energy/sec to recharge over the recharge of 4 seconds. If you fired 6 MLas, it would be 6 x 40 or 360 energy to recharge. Since the engine only has 150 energy to recharge with, it would take about twice as long to fire all of the medium lasers and recharge them.

Obviously, the numbers above are for demonstration purposes, but it could vary on load. You could even then have sliders in the mech lab to put more priority on weapons or speed or what have you for even more customized mechs.

[Coralld]

Felio, on 28 May 2014 - 07:37 AM, said:

30 pinpoint damage at short, medium or long range with the fastest projectile in the game is too much.

Yes, gauss rifles weigh a lot, so it doesn't leave much room for other things. Yes, it is low DPS if you get up and brawl with them. It doesn't matter. Getting nailed with 30 instant damage to a single location without making any mistakes -- because be honest, the first shot a sniper gets is usually a free one -- is a very negative experience.

There is plenty of time while one gauss rifle is cooling down to charge and fire the other. It would still be very effective for sniping. It just wouldn't have that "I got ganked by a cheap shot" feeling.

I wouldn't have to much of a problem with this as long as ACs turn into at least a 2x shell burst fire weapon per trigger pull where its total damage is split between the 2 shells.
That, and give the standard PPC the Lightning Arc mechanic. It would have a FLD of 6 and split the remaining 4 damage between 2 other locations with each dealing 2 damage. This would spread the damage around.

FLD has been the bane and biggest problem child of most MW games and changing the way ACs and PPCs behave is the quickest and easiest way to fix the problem without running the risk of breaking other in game assets like changing up convergence would for example.

[Mcgral18]

LordKnightFandragon, on 28 May 2014 - 08:33 PM, said:

mid sized shells, AC2 are 20mm, AC5 are 50? AC10s are like 85-90mm or so and AC20s are like 120mm

Just cuz they are rapid fired doesnt mean they suddenly deal half the damage of a single shot AC10....

It depends on the cannon. If an AC5 is 120MM, and it takes 5 shells to deal 5 damage, it's an AC5. If an AC10 is 120MM and it takes 10 shells to deal 10 damage, it's an AC10.

Koniving took the time to make a nice post about it, so I'll just quote him.

Koniving, on 26 May 2014 - 12:22 PM, said:

Ah single shot rifles.. Believe it or not I'd love to see rifles in a game. They'd be like MWO now... but much slower firing rates, with the biggest one doing 6 damage against military grade armor, despite having rounds larger (190mm) than the largest Inner Sphere AC/20 (which does 5 damage per shot at 4 shots, 185mm).
(For everyone else here)..
To mention it, here's 155mm.



An AC/20 Crusher Super Heavy Cannon, 150mm, requires 10 shots down range to do 20 damage, at 2 damage per shot. It's only 5mm smaller than that.

The largest AC/5 and typical AC/10 is 120mm, at 3 shots (AC/5) and 6 shots (AC/10) per 'use'.
And here's 120mm.


No "AC" is 1 shot in lore. In tabletop it is 'one use', and ammunition is 'one rating' per allotment of ammunition per ton. (example if an AC/5 has '20' allotments, that's 20 uses, which for a 120mm means 60 rounds or '20 uses', for an 80mm AC/5 that's 200 rounds or '20 uses', for a 40mm that's 400 rounds or '20 uses' per ton).

The other ACs kinda need to follow suit, but perhaps have 'lower' shot counts than the Ultras? After all Ultras do specifically state that they use smaller ammunition for faster reloading, which likely means they would need more to do the same damage.

Demonstration of burst fire ACs within MWO.
This video is Outdated, and the shot count for Chemjet Gun is incorrect.

But it's already made so enjoy.

Long story short.. ACs were tank-like rounds, that fired over time. For some ACs, bursts fired from magazines called cassettes which had rapid 'per shot' fire rates (thus bursts), but took forever to switch cassettes (magazines). For others, slower to fire per shot but 'automatic' weapons which didn't have magazines to fiddle with but couldn't 'rush' the shots out nearly as fast. Ultimately in 10 seconds you had effectively the same result; it was in the micro-managing that it mattered.

Burst fire was better for 'pop and squat' to pop out, fire and disappear. Automatics like the 15 shot 100mm AC/20 Deathgiver on the Atlas D were better for mechs who would constantly need to be at the ready to fire. And ultimately what limited their range to such pathetic levels? Recoil. You had to hit the target with 'all' the shots for it to 'count' as a hit in TT. 270 meters as an optimal range for for a weapon that spits out 10 rounds of heavy ordnance that would normally find itself on artillery or fired from the turrets of an American cruiser? That's some serious recoil, don't expect to be too accurate with it beyond that range.

In comparison, at 120mm (a size shared across ACs 5 through 20), its 3 shots, 6 shots, and 12 shots respectively. Well squeezing out 12 shots in the same amount of time another gun can only squeeze out 3 shots of the same ammunition is gonna have heavier recoil. So it had nothing to do with the bullets magically losing damage. Its the sheer plethora of shots and recoil making the mech unstable, thus making them much more likely to miss further out.

Even in the art on either side of this image, look at the Jagermech. AC/2s and AC/5s, and its ejecting shells like a machine gun... because that's exactly what ACs are. Very large machine guns firing Saboted HEAP rounds.

Sadly MWO doesn't have "autocannons". We have glorified rifles.

Edited by Mcgral18, 28 May 2014 - 08:47 PM.

[Strum Wealh]

Lightfoot, on 28 May 2014 - 07:55 PM, said:

True, MechWarrior is a translation of tabletop rules into real-time, but this is done by balancing range, damage, and recharge so a Gauss Rifle is balanced by making it take about twice as long as an AC10 to recharge. The Gauss Rifle has a bit more range and does 50% more damage than an AC10 so this is a fair balance or very close.

The Gauss Rifle is NOT a Sniper Rifle, it is just a long range ballistic. Technically, it can't be faster than PPCs either. You don't need Mr. Wizard or Nikola Tesla to tell you why either. If PGI wants to add a new apocryphal sniper rifle to MWO, be my guest, but just don't call it a Gauss Rifle.

The Gauss Rifle has an effective range nearly half-again as great as that of the AC/10; 660 meters for the Gauss Rifle is 1.4667x that of the AC/10's 450 meters.
A 47% difference in effective range (and, soon, a near-kilometer difference in maximum range if the GR doesn't get the same treatment coming to the ACs) is quite a lot more than "a bit more range".

For all intents and purposes, the Gauss Rifle was meant to fill the same relative niche for BattleMechs as a "sniper rifle" does for infantry, just like how the LB-X ACs have always been "anti-BattleMech shotguns" & how the UACs are the "battle rifle" analogues versus the Standard ACs' "assault rifle" analogues ("The battle rifle's power and long-range accuracy are intended to engage targets at long distances, but this comes with a trade-off of length and weight that make it relatively cumbersome in close-quarter combat" and "Assault rifles use smaller cartridges and are used at closer ranges than battle rifles. The larger sized rifle cartridges used in battle rifles make fully automatic fire more difficult").

[Coralld]

Mcgral18, on 28 May 2014 - 08:47 PM, said:

It depends on the cannon. If an AC5 is 120MM, and it takes 5 shells to deal 5 damage, it's an AC5. If an AC10 is 120MM and it takes 10 shells to deal 10 damage, it's an AC10.

Koniving took the time to make a nice post about it, so I'll just quote him.

Koniving, on 26 May 2014 - 12:22 PM, said:

Ah single shot rifles.. Believe it or not I'd love to see rifles in a game. They'd be like MWO now... but much slower firing rates, with the biggest one doing 6 damage against military grade armor, despite having rounds larger (190mm) than the largest Inner Sphere AC/20 (which does 5 damage per shot at 4 shots, 185mm).
(For everyone else here)..
To mention it, here's 155mm.



An AC/20 Crusher Super Heavy Cannon, 150mm, requires 10 shots down range to do 20 damage, at 2 damage per shot. It's only 5mm smaller than that.

The largest AC/5 and typical AC/10 is 120mm, at 3 shots (AC/5) and 6 shots (AC/10) per 'use'.
And here's 120mm.


No "AC" is 1 shot in lore. In tabletop it is 'one use', and ammunition is 'one rating' per allotment of ammunition per ton. (example if an AC/5 has '20' allotments, that's 20 uses, which for a 120mm means 60 rounds or '20 uses', for an 80mm AC/5 that's 200 rounds or '20 uses', for a 40mm that's 400 rounds or '20 uses' per ton).

The other ACs kinda need to follow suit, but perhaps have 'lower' shot counts than the Ultras? After all Ultras do specifically state that they use smaller ammunition for faster reloading, which likely means they would need more to do the same damage.

Demonstration of burst fire ACs within MWO.
This video is Outdated, and the shot count for Chemjet Gun is incorrect.

But it's already made so enjoy.

Long story short.. ACs were tank-like rounds, that fired over time. For some ACs, bursts fired from magazines called cassettes which had rapid 'per shot' fire rates (thus bursts), but took forever to switch cassettes (magazines). For others, slower to fire per shot but 'automatic' weapons which didn't have magazines to fiddle with but couldn't 'rush' the shots out nearly as fast. Ultimately in 10 seconds you had effectively the same result; it was in the micro-managing that it mattered.

Burst fire was better for 'pop and squat' to pop out, fire and disappear. Automatics like the 15 shot 100mm AC/20 Deathgiver on the Atlas D were better for mechs who would constantly need to be at the ready to fire. And ultimately what limited their range to such pathetic levels? Recoil. You had to hit the target with 'all' the shots for it to 'count' as a hit in TT. 270 meters as an optimal range for for a weapon that spits out 10 rounds of heavy ordnance that would normally find itself on artillery or fired from the turrets of an American cruiser? That's some serious recoil, don't expect to be too accurate with it beyond that range.

In comparison, at 120mm (a size shared across ACs 5 through 20), its 3 shots, 6 shots, and 12 shots respectively. Well squeezing out 12 shots in the same amount of time another gun can only squeeze out 3 shots of the same ammunition is gonna have heavier recoil. So it had nothing to do with the bullets magically losing damage. Its the sheer plethora of shots and recoil making the mech unstable, thus making them much more likely to miss further out.

Even in the art on either side of this image, look at the Jagermech. AC/2s and AC/5s, and its ejecting shells like a machine gun... because that's exactly what ACs are. Very large machine guns firing Saboted HEAP rounds.

Sadly MWO doesn't have "autocannons". We have glorified rifles.

Yep, pretty much hit the nail on the head.

[GreyGriffin]

The only weapon in battletech that has a trigger pull charge mechanism is the bombast laser, widely agreed to be a piece of crap.

The problem, as has been stated, is pinpoint damage. If damage was spread around the 'mech somewhat, especially at extreme ranges, taking 30-50 damage wouldn't be so infuriating. If we want Mechwarrior to be a game of multiple skills and not just a twitch fest, we have to reduce the impact of marksmanship to allow strategic maneuvering without torsos falling off at the click of a button. The kludgy Gauss rifle charge mechanic only exists because RNG Ragers can't abide the idea of a cone of fire... even though we already have random weapons fire in MG's, SRMs, Streaks machineguns, LRMs, and LB-X's.

[Koniving]

LordKnightFandragon, on 28 May 2014 - 08:33 PM, said:

AC2 are 20mm, AC5 are 50? AC10s are like 85-90mm or so and AC20s are like 120mm

To mention it, vehicle, tank and mech MGs are 12.5mm, 20mm, and 25mm bullets respectively.
LB-2s can go as low as 20mm, but generally AC/2s are 30mm to 80mm high explosive saboted anti-vehicle rounds. (Still only did a total of 2 damage in about 10 seconds).
AC/5s are 40mm to 120mm. These varied in purpose but were more effective against heavier armor and vehicles while still effective against infantry and light vehicles.
AC/10s are 80 to 120mm. (Exception: Pontiac 50) The scatter and recoil was considered too ineffective against vehicles, but the sheer spam of fire was favorited by many. The excessive amounts of heat caused by their autoloaders was unwanted.
AC/20s are 100 to 185mm. (Exception: Pontiac 100). These things really tore things up but the combination of the immense firing speed on lower calibers or the high explosive nature of high caliber ammunition led to serious heating issues. (The Pontiac 100 literally burns through a magazine of one hundred 30mm rounds in a matter of seconds and then takes forever to reload, by hand -- leading the Victor's ammunition feed problems).

UACs do go higher, the UAC/20 of the Cauldron Born specifically being 203mm, and the only actually recorded "single shot" autocannon. Its frequently depicted with huge two barrels despite how other UAC/20s are depicted with one, as in some books it literally loads one shell into each barrel, rotates the ready-one into a firing position, braces its HUGE legs and fires with a jolt so strong that if the Stalker-lengthed, Catapult-footed, Jenner-height mech were any taller it'd fall on its back.

Autocannons are old tech, on the verge of becoming obsolete. The reason they are still around is that unlike lasers and PPCs, they had a physical punch that could disorient and knock over enemies, and they ran well even with 10 SHS. Since it was 1 heat for an AC/2 per 10 seconds, or 7 heat for an AC/20 in 10 seconds, it was really easy to manage. It was extremely high tonnage damage over time weaponry in exchange for being 'cold'.

A single PPC was more powerful than any single shot from an AC/20, though in the time a PPC had to recharge, the complete cycle of an AC/20 would beat out the PPC. Of course no one in their right mind would fire 2 or 3 PPCs at once due to what it'd do to you as the pilot. Ever had a dashboard so hot you could fry an egg into a black crisp? There's a reason pilots often drive in their underwear with cooling vests, boots, and gloves.

Meanwhile, the up until the Clan ER PPC came on the field, a Gauss Rifle was the most powerful single shot weapon to exist. In a single shot it'd perform equally the damage of 15 Stingers (an LRM-15). Without any explosive power. Most mechs hit with just one of these would fall instantly on its backside, like a Commando getting punched in the face by an Atlas at over 600 meters away! Governing these, aside from having only 8 shots per ton (unlike an AC/20 which in the largest case had 5 magazines of 4 shots each per ton), was the fact that it could only be fired once every 10 seconds per weapon as firing more frequently than that would cause the weapon to literally rip itself apart.

Firing twice in 10 seconds, like mechs have double armor, is perfectly fine with the way MWO is done. But a Gauss Rifle isn't a problem. If you don't like them, imagine what the Clan ER PPCs will do at 15 damage each, as their ability to pack in heatsinks is better than ours. They can get 3 ER PPCs to fire at the same time with ghost heat and still not shut down. You'll want Ghost Heat then and a fully functional Gauss Rifle.

To keep PPCs in check, we need a 30 threshold.
To keep ACs in check, we need burst fire.
To keep Gauss Rifle in check; we don't need to do anything. (If it was really a problem there'd be more than one or two users every 15 or more matches).

[Alex Warden]

oh did someone find out that gauss still WORKS and now wants another nerf to destroy it? lol

[LordKnightFandragon]

^^Kon, what ever happened to being able to knock mechs down in this game?

I know in Beta we could do so.

THe light guys cry to much that being hammered by a hail storm of fire and being knocked down meant they died to easily?

After all, the point of a light mech is to avoid fire, not run head long into it cuz you can avoid 8/10 shots fired ur way.




But 2 damage in 10 seconds of fire? 7dmg in 10 seconds? For a weapon that sucks up that much space? Requires that much ammo......no friggin thank you lol.

Id much rather have a LL, PPC, or something that can actually be taken seriously. Its why I dont use AC2 and 5 in almost all MW game out right now. I cant stand the DPS idea of doing 2 dmg per shot....it sounds like, if you packed in enough AC5s and stuff, you would down targets pretty quick, but it never ends up that way. Can never really pack in enough of em to really make it worth while.

Meanwhile, in most games, a pair of AC10s really rapes face...pair it with some LL, or in MW4, a series of Strk SRM6 and Med Lasers, it really dishes the damage.

Edited by LordKnightFandragon, 28 May 2014 - 09:37 PM.